Brightspace Tip #466: Copy Assignments

The Assignments tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. Students use the Assignments tool to upload and submit assignments directly in Brightspace, eliminating the need to mail, fax, or email their work to instructors. On paper submissions, and observed in person assignments are also available and do not require file submissions to be made in Brightspace.

Did you know that you can quickly create new assignments from existing assignments using the Copy Assignment and the Copy to Other Courses options?

The Copy Assignment feature copies all settings of an existing assignment except the associated grade item and Turnitin settings.

Instructors who teach multiple courses can Copy Assignments to Other Courses. To copy assignments to another course, you must be enrolled in both the source and destination course with a role having the permission Assignments > Copy to Other Courses in order to copy from source to destination.

Instructors can copy the following assignment attributes to the new destination:

• Assignment folder and its properties, including instructions, assignment category, and visibility
• Assignment properties including description and category
• Attachments like direct file attachments, uploaded from Google Workspace or OneDrive, and audio and video files
• Grade item and grade category
• Availability dates
• Submission and completion information, including the Optional Grade item and the course scheme if used.
• Rubric(s) associated with the assignment. When copying an assignment that uses a shared rubric, instead of linking a copied assignment to a shared rubric, the rubric is also copied. The copied assignment links to the copied rubric. If an assignment uses a rubric that is archived, the rubric is copied and retains its archived state in the destination course.

The following attributes are NOT copied:

• Instruction Quicklinks and attachment resources created with the Attach link to existing activity action
• Instruction images added using Insert Image that were saved to course files
• Availability release conditions and special access settings
• Submission and completion information, including group assignment designation
• Evaluation and Feedback information including Turnitin associations, competency, and outcome associations
• Content topic associations (for example, if the assignment is linked from content)

Note: In some cases, references to links and images that are not copied may result in broken links.

Follow these steps to do it.

To copy an existing assignment, you should:

1. On the NavBar, click Activities and then click Assignments.
2. From the drop-down menu of the assignment you want to copy, click Copy Assignment.
3. The copied assignment opens in edit mode. Update the name, score, due date, instructions and other settings of the copied assignment.
4. After reviewing all the details, click Save and Close to go back to the Assignments page.

To copy an assignment to another course, you should:

1. On the NavBar, click Activities and then click Assignments.
2. From the drop-down menu of the assignment you want to copy, click Copy to Other Courses.
3. Click to select the rubrics and/or grade items if you want those items copied with the assignment.
4. In the Choose Destinations area, search by keyword or semester to find the destination courses for the assignment.
5. Click to select the destination course(s) for the assignment.
   Note: By default, the maximum number of courses you can select is 10.
6. Expand the Destination course to set the assignment location and visibility.
7. Click Next and you will be taken to the progress page.

NOTE: The progress page indicates the status of each destination course and any issues. If you navigate away from the progress page, a minibar notification in Brightspace indicates when the assignment has been copied to all the destination courses. You can click the notification to open the progress page to review the status and logged issues.

Want more information?

Brightspace Tip #464: Simplify Assignment Collection
Copy an existing assignment
Copy assignments to other courses
About Assignments
Create an assignment
Observed in person assignments
Allow Special Access for assignments
Evaluate assignment submissions from Content
Brightspace Tip #143: Annotate Assignment Submissions

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